The present invention relates generally to agricultural equipment and more particularly to apparatus for clearing crop residue hereinafter referenced to as trash, from a field prior to planting or cultivating, and is particularly useful in no till farming. No till farming is being utilized on increased acreage throughout the country in order to conserve time, wear and tear on equipment and for ecological reasons. One of the problems encountered with no till farming is the amount of trash present on the field in the next planting season which must be dealt with by the farmer during either cultivation or planting.
It is extremely important in planting to be able to achieve a relatively uniform seed depth and to this end there are a whole host of patents relating to that subject matter, representative examples being the Deckler U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,922, the Grataloup U.S. Pat. No. 4,594,951, the Westerfield U.S. Pat. No. 4,374,500. Moreover, there are a large number of prior art patents that relate to furrow opening and closing mechanisms associated with seed depth and seed dispensers in order to provide adequate planting conditions enabling the farmer to have uniformly planted crops wherein the opportunity for early and uniform seed germination is enhanced, see D. Brass, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,668. It should be understood that the citation of patents herein is not exhaustive by any manner but merely is illustrative of the kind of development and detail which is present in the farm art.
In a no till field, it is difficult to achieve either good furrow confirmation or good seed depth because of the amount of trash present on the field and it is to this problem which the present invention is directed.